


it's not living if it's not with you

by tumemxnques



Category: The 1975 (Band)
Genre: Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Rehabilitation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:47:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28437873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tumemxnques/pseuds/tumemxnques
Summary: when matty finds himself in rehab with a quirky midwest lesbian, he needs to admit to himself what it is that he really feels for george..or: the sad rehab fic no one asked for with a guest performance by lauren sanderson to lighten up the mood(don't ask me why ao3 says it's a finished fic, it's not, but i can't change that lol)
Relationships: George Daniel/Matthew Healy
Comments: 7
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay so first of all: this shit is gonna be heavy. like, i mean it.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS:
> 
> DRUG USE  
> DEPRESSION  
> SELF HARM  
> REHAB
> 
> also i want to say that in no way did things ever happen the way they're described in this story, it's fiction. 
> 
> lauren sanderson is in no way doing heavy drugs (at least i don't know about that lol), i just needed a cool gay character and she came to my mind so yea
> 
> go check her stuff out if you want :)

_The light is blinding the first time he opens his eyes. He closes them with a hiss, his head pounding. He feels sick, like he's just come off a rollercoaster. It's impossible to sit up, and he finds that it's impossible to breathe, too. Panic rises in his constricted chest. "George!" he screams as loud as he can. It's the only thing he can do: scream. "George!" He doesn't know George can't hear him. "George," he whimpers under his breath when George doesn't appear by his side to hold him. Then, he drifts off again._

_The next time he wakes, he's in so much pain he can't think. It burns him up from the inside. This time, he can't form any words, so he just screams. He screams on top of his lungs because the pain worsens with every second and he would much rather die. He wants George by his side, wants him to ease the pain. He feels lonely, abandoned. Then, he hears voices, faintly, over his own cries. They come closer, but he can't open his eyes. He just keeps on writhing on the sheets. "Just give him the fucking methadone!" he hears a girl scream, almost as loud as him. She has an accent, from the US. Midwest? Probably. His brain can't form any coherent thoughts. "He's dying, don't you see? Just inject it, he can't swallow one of your stupid pills!" the girl keeps screeching and Matty wants to cover his ears. His hands won't move. He feels a needle in his arm a moment later. He knows it'll ease the pain but feels himself fight against it. He doesn't want the drug. He wants George. He's disappointed George so many times, why did someone do that for him now? He opens his eyes, they are heavy. It feels like his lashes have been glued together. He sees George kneeling on their bedroom floor in Matty's sick, injecting heroin into his veins. He sees the tears on his face, the way he bites his lips so hard he draws blood. George doesn't want to do this, Matty realizes. He doesn't want to let Matty suffer endlessly, either. So he pumps the drug into Matty's veins, making the pain stop. When he looks up at him, the form shifts. In shock, he realizes this isn't George. It's a man with a beard, looks faintly like Ross, but isn't Ross either. His voice sounds like Adam's. He isn't home. Where's George? They're killing him, he thinks. This is the end and he isn't even allowed to die at home. So he screams again. "George!"_

_He keeps on screaming George's name, although it's useless. George is miles away. He keeps hearing these voices too, they're talking about him. He's not dead yet. He yells for George over and over again, he's still in pain. It's dull, but it's there. Suddenly, a familiar smell surrounds him. He feels a soft piece of fabric against the skin of his hollow cheek. The smell eases the pain a little. It smells like George, he realizes. "George," he whispers and tries to form a smile._

_The next time he wakes up, someone is softly humming next to him. It's a soft tune, like a lullaby that George usually sings to him when he's so high he can do nothing but stare into nothingness and wait for sleep to swallow him whole. The voice isn't as deep though, far from it, so he rolls his head over with a groan. "Hey," he hears a voice. The humming has stopped. It's the humming voice, he thinks. Makes sense. He opens his eyes and has to blink rapidly to stop the burning. "Are you better?" It's the girl. The Midwest kid. Matty can't answer. He shifts his head and his eyes catch a glimpse of her. She's pretty, Matty thinks. She has dark hair, it's long, and tattoos everywhere. She looks like someone you don't want to mess with, in a beautiful way. "I'm your roommate, Lauren," she continues and smiles, all flashing white teeth. "I'm a lesbian though, it's fine." Matty tries to speak, but all he gets out is a weak groan. She pats his arm. "You should go back to sleep, mate." Matty does._

_He's shaking. It's so cold, it feels like winter. There's a wet cloth on his forehead, someone dabs it on his chest. It doesn't do much. He whines under his breath. "'s just me," he hears Lauren's voice. "You have a fever. It's normal. I don't wanna call some stupid nurse. The nice one is off duty tonight and the others are just gonna get you high on methadone." Matty sighs softly. "George?" he whispers. He sounds pathetic. He hears Lauren sigh. "I don't know who George is, love. But I swear if you're better we'll get you to him, okay?"_ _That promise to see George is enough for Matty tonight._

_When he sleeps, he sees George. He sees him every single time._

_He wants to see George again. Not just in his dreams. He wants to feel him again, skin against skin, his lips on Matty's forehead, his cheeks, his lips. He wants him to stroke his knuckles with his thumb, wants him to laugh so loudly it fills up the whole room. He wants him to pull him in for one of his big hugs that make you forget about all the bad things happening in your life. He wants him back._

_So he sits up in one fast movement, opens his eyes and screams._


	2. Chapter 2

After the week of the so-called detox, he found himself slowly feeling better. The nausea and the sweating was gone, the pain had subsided.

The friendly nurse knocked at the door and then peeked through the crack she'd made, not opening the door fully. "Hey, good morning, Matthew."

Matty smiled. "Hey to you, too." She smiled back softly. "Lauren's looking for you. She asked if she could have breakfast with you." That made Matty sit up. "Yeah, sure, you tell her I'll come downstairs in a moment."

The nurse nodded and made a move to leave, but came back just a second later. "Do you need anything? You still look super drowsy." Matty shook his head.

It was true, his brain was a bit foggy, but it was alright. Nothing against the fog heroin created. "I'm okay. Nothing a good cup of coffee can't fix." The nurse laughed and left with a wave of her hand.

She was nice, Matty thought and put on some sweatpants and one of the shirts he'd stolen from George to take with him when George hadn't looked.

He practically drowned in it, but it smelled like George, smelled like home and warmth and safety, and that was all he needed right now.

He put on his slippers and went on his way to the cafeteria. This was the first time he went on his own. The first time no one helped him walk or put him in a wheelchair because they were too scared he'd collapse.

Truth was, Matty had lost a lot of weight because the heroin had suppressed his appetite. It didn't look healthy anymore, but he had to take it slow now. One day at a time. Step after step.

He saw Lauren from far away, waving at him with the signature big grin on her face. "Hey, sleepyhead. How are we feeling today?" Matty snorted. "I'm okay, thanks for asking. How are you?"

Lauren giggled and took a sip of her tea. "I'm good, mate. Almost done with breakfast and ready for my fucking cigarette." Matty frowned as he took a slice of bread. "You can get cigarettes here?"

Lauren nodded. "You want one?" she asked around a spoonful of some type of oatmeal Matty wasn't exactly keen on trying. "I mean, is that legal? Like wait, no, is that allowed?" Matty mumbled and Lauren nodded with a laugh. Fucking brain fog.

"Course it is. All you gotta do is ask the nurses. It's regulated, but you can get up to three a day." Matty nodded. Maybe a cigarette would clear his mind. It was the best chance he had.

"Whose shirt is that, by the way? Did you go over to that tree dude in 301 to steal some of his shit? Cause he's gonna punch the living shit out of you, man." Matty looked down at himself and blushed. "No, it's… it's George's." Lauren raised both her perfectly plucked eyebrows.

"The famous George?" she asked. "What do you mean?" Matty asked in confusion. He hadn't known that people here knew they were famous. "The guy you kept screaming and crying for. When you came off heroin I mean."

Matty let out a breath of relief. "Oh. Yeah. Someone gave me his hoodie at some point." Lauren nodded. "Yeah, you were sobbing uncontrollably and you were in so much pain it was heartbreaking. You kept crying for George and the nurses tried to tell you that it was fine. You insisted it wasn't, so someone called your mom… she told them you had like one of his hoodies in your luggage, so they found it and gave it to you. You were immediately calmer, still in pain but you stopped screaming, it was impressive."

Matty put his face in his hands." Oh God," he groaned. He was embarrassed by the way he'd acted during the detox, especially because he couldn't remember much of it. Being left in the dark about it made him anxious.

Lauren just chuckled. "It's fine, man. We all have different things to help us cope. So, who is this George?" Matty smiled hazily. "George?"

 _George is everything,_ he wanted to say. _George is my sun and my moon and all the stars, he's my partner in crime, my best friend, my rock, my anchor, he's the softest and most caring person in the world, always there for me. He means the world to me_.

"He's my best mate," Matty settled on instead and Lauren nodded slowly. "Oh, okay." They just looked at each other for a moment, before Lauren broke the silence, grinning. "What about a cigarette now?" 

"I think it's a bit over the top that they don't give us a lighter," Matty complained as he let his one leg dangle off the brick wall they were sitting on to smoke.

Lauren shrugged. "Well, they don't want you running around with a lighter. You could do heroin with a lighter. You know, liquifying it and shit." Matty hissed as a flash of pain shot through his head. 

_"Okay, okay, what do I do now?" George pants and holds the syringe in front of Matty's face. Matty points to the black belt on the chair next to the closet. "Your belt." George grabs it and puts it next to his friend, carefully avoiding the puke covering most of the bed now. He has to suppress a gag. Matty is fumbling with a little cap and one of George's lighters, desperately trying to get the heroin to be a liquid. When he succeeds, he holds it out to George. "Can you? I'm shaking so badly, I'll just spill it." George sighs but obeys, not knowing how much heroin to draw up. "How much, Matty, I don't want this to be an overdose!" His friend groans again and nods at him. "That's enough." George sighs and puts the rest of the liquid away, holding the syringe awkwardly in his shaking hand. "Are you gonna…. s-shoot that up now?"_

When the flashback ended, he pulled his other leg up and hugged his knees, rocking back and forth. He couldn't even feel his cheeks being wet from tears that spilled out of his eyes.

"Fuck, Matty, hey," Lauren mumbled and scooted over to him on the wall. "I'm sorry, I didn't know that would trigger you, it was supposed to be a joke."

Matty just nodded absentmindedly, his heart aching in his chest. "I forced him to shoot up for me," he whispered, just barely audible.

Lauren gasped softly, not knowing what to say. "That's fucked up," she then eventually settled on, because it was the truth. Matty nodded. "Yeah."

They both sat in silence for the rest of their respective cigarettes, blowing the smoke towards the sky as if they could exhale all their pain with it. 


	3. Chapter 3

"Well, what are you going to do now?" he asked Lauren, as she jumped off the brick wall. "I have fucking group therapy now, I hate it. You?" Matty shrugged and followed suit. "Nothing, free time. I have therapy later on, though." 

Lauren nodded and started to walk. "Have you been in therapy before? Like with a real therapist and all?" Matty shrugged. "I mean, never for long. I'm not one to open up to strangers, you know? I have my few trusted friends and that's it." 

"Yeah, and me now, huh?" Lauren giggled and Matty punched her arm lightly. "Idiot," he mumbled. "Is George one of your trusted people? Like, if you had to say, on a scale from one to ten, one is I don't trust him and ten is I know he would die for me, how much do you trust him?" 

Matty didn't even have to think. "He's a solid eleven." That didn't take Lauren by surprise. "I figured. Then why didn't you detox at home?" 

_ "George," he croaks and sits up, immediately wavering. George rushes to Matty's bedside, supporting him with both his arms. "Hey, easy there. You're gonna be sick?" Matty sighs. "Nah. Just dizzy." George nods and looks at Matty's pale face, the burnt lips. His heart clenches terribly in his chest, but he knows that it's for the better. "You look so full of self hatred, Georgie," Matty chuckles, no happiness behind the hollow sound. "You don't even have to tell me about your decision. I might be crazy but I can still read you like a book." George bites his lip. "I'm sorry, mate." Matty nods, looking George right in the eyes. "I guessed. It wouldn't be fair." All of a sudden, George can't hold back the tears. They burst out of him with an unknown force, shaking him to the core. He sobs on top of his lungs, suppressing screams of pure agony. He feels so bad for not being there for his best friend, it tears him apart. Matty knows. "Nah, fuck, George, stop, come here," Matty grunts and clumsily wraps his arms around George's trembling body. "It's okay, mate. I didn't expect you to witness that shit." It doesn't console George, not in the slightest, so they just sit there, George crying and Matty holding him, staring at the opposite wall with empty eyes. That's what the heroin made of him, a shell of himself, a body with no soul.  _

" I wanted to," he whispered. "I really did." Lauren didn't say anything, just stared at him, giving him the time he needed. "George was about to break, he had reached his limits, you know? It wouldn't have been fair. He probably would've gone insane, having to watch me go through that. Like, it was bad, wasn't it?" 

Lauren nodded, shuddering at the thought of her roommate's detox week. "And you don't even know me. Well, didn't at least. He does, though." Lauren didn't quite get it. "But he would've known what you needed, wouldn't he?" 

Matty nodded, biting his pinky nail. "Yeah. Of course. But it's not about me. It's about him. It's the fact that the heroin hasn't just destroyed me. It's destroyed him. Us. I don't know how I am supposed to look him in the eyes ever again. It hurt him to see me suffer. We've been best friends since I don't know, I was fourteen, maybe? I've shaped half his life. A quarter of it consisted of taking care of me. Having an eye on me when I was depressed, when I didn't eat, when I did coke, when I went for heroin instead, he was always there. I hid a lot from him, but he figured it out in the end. And then he let everything else go in that moment to be there for me. Just for me. He was exhausted. I didn't want him to have to witness the detox, really. He didn't want to see it, I could read it in his face." 

_ His beautiful, beautiful face.  _

"He cried." 

_ These big, round tears making his cheeks shine in the moonlight.  _

"It wasn't an easy decision." 

Lauren sighed. "I get it now. And I'm sorry that things went that way for you two. Maybe… maybe therapy isn't the worst idea. It's not your fault that George is where he is now, Matty. He chose to care for you. He could've left at any point. He didn't. He stayed because he loved you. Still does, most likely. This isn't your fault." 

Matty nodded, although he didn't think what Lauren said was true. He was the reason George was like that, sad and empty, exhausted and pale. He was the fucking curse that had settled on George, sucking the life out of him. 

And God, did he hate himself for that. 


	4. i've been waiting for you

Therapy was a weird concept, to Matty at least. Sitting face to face with a stranger that was supposed to turn your insides out, in a psychological way, made him feel sick.

It wasn't that he didn't like talking about himself - his songs proved that, so did interviews with him, but he liked to be in control over what he said.

Therapy completely took that control from him. It felt like driving and suddenly someone else took the wheel. And if you were lucky, that someone drove the car straight off a cliff.

He didn't like it, not one bit. It wasn't his therapist's fault, not really. He was an elderly man, who looked like a grandpa, really. The friendly grandpa from next door. Except he wasn't.

"I can't help you if you don't talk to me, Matthew," he said in that moment and Matty scowled. _It's Matty_ , he wanted to hiss, but kept quiet, grinding his teeth.

"I'm not here to hurt you, but I need to know what you take heroin for."

Matty's head snapped upwards. "No matter what you're gonna ask, it's gonna hurt if I answer it truthfully." The therapist nodded. "But maybe that hurt is necessary, then. Feel it again and let it go."

But Matty didn't want to feel it again. He really didn't. "What if I don't want to?" he whispered, well aware that he sounded like a child. The therapist shrugged. "Well, then this is all for nothing, Matthew. You will go home and it will continue where it left off. It will hurt George even further, you know that, right?"

That caused Matty to see red. He jumped up, knocking over the chair in the process. He bared his teeth at the therapist, hissing. He didn't want to hear George's name out of his mouth ever again. "Do not talk about George as if you know him. You don't. You don't know what we went through together."

Strangely enough, the man in front of hin stayed calm. "I don't. But I want you to tell me. Sit down."

And Matty did, like a reflex. "Why don't we start with who George is?" Matty gulped. "George's my best mate."

The psychologist nodded and scribbled something on a piece of paper. "How did you two meet?" A small smile formed on Matty's face at that question. 

_"Goddamnit, watch where you stand you stupid prick," Matty spits after he collided with someone much taller than him outside the school. "Sorry," just comes back, in a voice deeper than Matty has ever heard. He looks up into the face of someone he's never seen before. The boy looks confused and lost, so Matty sighs. "'s alright. Just had a shitty day." The boy nods and looks down at his feet. "Yeah, same." Matty suddenly feels captivated by the new boy and pulls a crumpled cigarette from his back pocket. "Wanna share?" he asks cockily as he holds it out to the guy, who nods shyly. "If you don't mind." Matty pulls him by the shirt behind the building to his secret smoking spot and sits down on the grass. "C'mere," he says and pats the grass. The tall boy sits down next to him, awkwardly, but he manages. Matty takes the first drag, before he passes it to the other guy. He inhales slowly, cheeks hollowing and Matty marvels at the way his soft lips stretch around the cigarette, the way his cheeks hollow, he imagines them stretching around something bigger, something more- then he scolds himself mentally and stops his train of thought. He doesn't even know that guy. "What's your name?" he asks and takes the cigarette again. "George," the boy answers and Matty nods. "I'm Matty." George gives him a heartfelt smile. "Thanks for the fag, Matty."_

"We hung out pretty much every day after that," he mumbled and smiled softly to himself. He hadn't been away from George for longer than three days ever since. 

"So you're just friends or something more?" Matty stared at the man. "Like I said, we're best mates. Nothing more." The psychologist wrote something down again on his clipboard. The sound of the pen on paper made Matty furious.

"But you wish you had something more," he then said, not a question, a statement. Matty frowned. "No," he said, but didn't miss the way the word tugged on his heart. The therapist just raised an eyebrow.

_Stupid prick._


End file.
